As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong? In the meantime, the never ending Witch Hunt, led by 13 very Angry and Conflicted Democrats (& others) continues into the mid-terms!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 4, 2018

#Thingsguiltypeoplesay

Seriously, get Trump under oath and he WILL incriminate himself. He lies daily, literally daily, and lying under oath is apparently what hurt Bill.

Trump is literally above the law. Republicans are so whipped by his cult of personality and fear of his cultists they'd let him get away with anything. Trump could openly lie under oath in a public court room. He could be on the stand, fisting Ivanka with one hand while shooting orphans in the face and swear under oath he's not actually in the court room but at home watching Rick and Morty and not only would the GOP go along with it, they'd praise him for how brave and smart he is and high-five him on finally getting that piece of Ivanka he's always wanted. And those orphans were fake news, never happened, and even if it did the Democrats did it, #MexicoWall!

I honestly don't get what the GOP long term plan is. Even if he declares himself President for life, which he would get away with, he will die eventually. One day there will be someone else declared President and at that point the majority of the nation won't take a single thing Republicans say seriously. How can you come back from Trump to a moral, 'think of the children' law and order party?

Silentpony:Trump is literally above the law. Republicans are so whipped by his cult of personality and fear of his cultists they'd let him get away with anything. Trump could openly lie under oath in a public court room. He could be on the stand, fisting Ivanka with one hand while shooting orphans in the face and swear under oath he's not actually in the court room but at home watching Rick and Morty and not only would the GOP go along with it, they'd praise him for how brave and smart he is and high-five him on finally getting that piece of Ivanka he's always wanted. And those orphans were fake news, never happened, and even if it did the Democrats did it, #MexicoWall!

I honestly don't get what the GOP long term plan is. Even if he declares himself President for life, which he would get away with, he will die eventually. One day there will be someone else declared President and at that point the majority of the nation won't take a single thing Republicans say seriously. How can you come back from Trump to a moral, 'think of the children' law and order party?

One of the few truths spoken by Trump 'I could shoot somebody in Times Square and not lose any voters'

Trump is the enemy of America, the enemy of freedom, the enemy of every good person in this country.

Silentpony: How can you come back from Trump to a moral, 'think of the children' law and order party?

Well that's simple, they never stopped being that. I mean for fucks sake, during the teacher strike in Kentucky a month or so ago, the governor was going on about how children could be raped because of the strike. Hypocrisy doesn't matter to them and neither does reality. Their voters don't exactly care either. They're held to different standards...no standards. Trump isn't some anomaly, he's the ultimate conclusion of what the party has been going towards for decades. When that orange buffoon is gone, it's just a matter of revisionist history and lies to get back to the "norm".

And of coarse he's come out and said that. Right now there's a debate over whether it's Constitutional or not, but quite frankly I don't see how. You can argue over the wording (and I don't even see how people are doing that), but I don't think the intent was to allow the President to be above the law. Hell, I'm pretty damn sure of that considering the paranoia and fear the founders had of monarchies. Rudy Giuliani coming out and saying that he could have shot Comey dead in the Oval Office and they wouldn't be able to do anything to him is fucking hysterical though. They're grasping at straws to the point where they're outright saying Trump is king and you can't do anything to a king.

Silentpony: How can you come back from Trump to a moral, 'think of the children' law and order party?

Well that's simple, they never stopped being that. I mean for fucks sake, during the teacher strike in Kentucky a month or so ago, the governor was going on about how children could be raped because of the strike. Hypocrisy doesn't matter to them and neither does reality. Their voters don't exactly care either. They're held to different standards...no standards. Trump isn't some anomaly, he's the ultimate conclusion of what the party has been going towards for decades. When that orange buffoon is gone, it's just a matter of revisionist history and lies to get back to the "norm".

And of coarse he's come out and said that. Right now there's a debate over whether it's Constitutional or not, but quite frankly I don't see how. You can argue over the wording (and I don't even see how people are doing that), but I don't think the intent was to allow the President to be above the law. Hell, I'm pretty damn sure of that considering the paranoia and fear the founders had of monarchies. Rudy Giuliani coming out and saying that he could have shot Comey dead in the Oval Office and they wouldn't be able to do anything to him is fucking hysterical though. They're grasping at straws to the point where they're outright saying Trump is king and you can't do anything to a king.

At this point, fuck the Constitution, it is a meaningless document that is just used to protect child murder and neo-Nazis. It is just used at the convenience of evil people to excuse their behavior, but when it defends their opponents, they shit all over it.

I believe in what the Constitution was -supposed- to be about, but it was supposed to be about protecting The People from tyranny of cruel and evil governments. Now it is a tool of tyranny.

I honestly don't get what the GOP long term plan is. Even if he declares himself President for life, which he would get away with, he will die eventually. One day there will be someone else declared President and at that point the majority of the nation won't take a single thing Republicans say seriously. How can you come back from Trump to a moral, 'think of the children' law and order party?

The GOP don't really have a plan, they just know that if Trump goes down they go down with him, so there "plan" is to make sure that doesn't happen (probably hoping he'll leave after two rounds). There winning strategy going forward is a mix of vote suppression, pushing for greater power for rural area that vote for them and more propaganda. The things is, that might very well be a winning strategy for them. The public is amazingly uniformed about what Trump is doing, plenty of people don't know about the stuff that was uncovered and a scary number of people actually believe it's all a conspiracy.

I mean, Trump is undoubtedly the worse president in history. Yet the odd that the GOP will lose the house aren't that high (maybe 60-70% chance, you need something like 55% of the population to vote democrat for the house to flip) and Trump potential vote in 2020 are hovering at around the same numbers that they did in 2016. Meanwhile the GOP still control most of the governorship and assembly at state level (cause people who vote GOP are far more likely to turn up on the day of vote, doubly so if it's not a presidential race). At worse, if Trump fail, the GOP will have a perfect model for how to recapture the presidency, imagine if Trump wasn't incredibly dumb but still corrupt and morally compromised.

Considering the fact that I consider the act of accepting a pardon to be essentially an admission of guilt, I would love for him to issue a pardon to himself. Not that I think it would make a single bit of practical difference considering the moral character of his citizenry but still.

Silentpony:Trump is literally above the law. Republicans are so whipped by his cult of personality and fear of his cultists they'd let him get away with anything. Trump could openly lie under oath in a public court room. He could be on the stand, fisting Ivanka with one hand while shooting orphans in the face and swear under oath he's not actually in the court room but at home watching Rick and Morty and not only would the GOP go along with it, they'd praise him for how brave and smart he is and high-five him on finally getting that piece of Ivanka he's always wanted. And those orphans were fake news, never happened, and even if it did the Democrats did it, #MexicoWall!

I honestly don't get what the GOP long term plan is. Even if he declares himself President for life, which he would get away with, he will die eventually. One day there will be someone else declared President and at that point the majority of the nation won't take a single thing Republicans say seriously. How can you come back from Trump to a moral, 'think of the children' law and order party?

One of the few truths spoken by Trump 'I could shoot somebody in Times Square and not lose any voters'

Trump is the enemy of America, the enemy of freedom, the enemy of every good person in this country.

People keep equating America with Freedom. While not as bad as Russia, etc, I wouldn't put America anywhere near freedom, no matter the rhetoric. Thus I don't think Trump is the enemy of a lot of Americans. Still the enemy for freedom though. He's becomin as bad as the ayatollah with his restriction of ideas and religions. I already consider America in Red Scare/ McCarthy state of terror.

Silentpony:Trump is literally above the law. Republicans are so whipped by his cult of personality and fear of his cultists they'd let him get away with anything. Trump could openly lie under oath in a public court room. He could be on the stand, fisting Ivanka with one hand while shooting orphans in the face and swear under oath he's not actually in the court room but at home watching Rick and Morty and not only would the GOP go along with it, they'd praise him for how brave and smart he is and high-five him on finally getting that piece of Ivanka he's always wanted. And those orphans were fake news, never happened, and even if it did the Democrats did it, #MexicoWall!

I honestly don't get what the GOP long term plan is. Even if he declares himself President for life, which he would get away with, he will die eventually. One day there will be someone else declared President and at that point the majority of the nation won't take a single thing Republicans say seriously. How can you come back from Trump to a moral, 'think of the children' law and order party?

One of the few truths spoken by Trump 'I could shoot somebody in Times Square and not lose any voters'

Trump is the enemy of America, the enemy of freedom, the enemy of every good person in this country.

People keep equating America with Freedom. While not as bad as Russia, etc, I wouldn't put America anywhere near freedom, no matter the rhetoric. Thus I don't think Trump is the enemy of a lot of Americans. Still the enemy for freedom though. He's becomin as bad as the ayatollah with his restriction of ideas and religions. I already consider America in Red Scare/ McCarthy state of terror.

Just so we can get something straight on that. We never left that. Communist has always been a dirty word in this country, ever since that, and people have always been hysterical over SOME kind of scapegoat. The target just keeps changing.

Saelune:One of the few truths spoken by Trump 'I could shoot somebody in Times Square and not lose any voters'

Trump is the enemy of America, the enemy of freedom, the enemy of every good person in this country.

People keep equating America with Freedom. While not as bad as Russia, etc, I wouldn't put America anywhere near freedom, no matter the rhetoric. Thus I don't think Trump is the enemy of a lot of Americans. Still the enemy for freedom though. He's becomin as bad as the ayatollah with his restriction of ideas and religions. I already consider America in Red Scare/ McCarthy state of terror.

Just so we can get something straight on that. We never left that. Communist has always been a dirty word in this country, ever since that, and people have always been hysterical over SOME kind of scapegoat. The target just keeps changing.

I don't just mean communism. Today decision on bakers and gay people sounds awfully like the Jim Crowe restriction of commerce against black people 100 years ago. I'd be happy to her how it's different, but discrimination is apparently back in vogue. Last week's reduction in workers rights is another one. I'm going to call it. This is going to be a bumpy month.

Also, how many years before Americans are back to jailing gay people and non Christians? We only got rid of the former 30 years ago in Australia, within my lifetime. Russia already has it and it seems to be working well for Putin

trunkage: Today decision on bakers and gay people sounds awfully like the Jim Crowe restriction of commerce against black people 100 years ago. I'd be happy to her how it's different, but discrimination is apparently back in vogue. Last week's reduction in workers rights is another one. I'm going to call it. This is going to be a bumpy month.

It remained to be seen exactly how it will play out but the decision on bakery is actually very limited, it only pertain to creative exercise. Meaning if the bakery makes generic cake, they don't have the right to refuse to sell it. But they do have the right to refuse to make a specialized cake since it's considered an artistic expression and protected by 1st amendment. This could eventually cause some problem, is a chef in a restaurant making a product or making an artistic expression when cooking something for customer? But it's very far from outright banning people from commerce.

It remained to be seen exactly how it will play out but the decision on bakery is actually very limited, it only pertain to creative exercise. Meaning if the bakery makes generic cake, they don't have the right to refuse to sell it. But they do have the right to refuse to make a specialized cake since it's considered an artistic expression and protected by 1st amendment. This could eventually cause some problem, is a chef in a restaurant making a product or making an artistic expression when cooking something for customer? But it's very far from outright banning people from commerce.

Then open a church.

'Creative exercise' could mean anything. Like any host of services that cater for weddings. Unless you can prove active villification or outside the reasonable conditions of your labour, you shouldn't get a free pass from simply arbitrarily discounting people's market participation.

Responsibility is ethical agency.

The naivete is extreme, it follows on from other rather dangerous actions like faith-recognized discrimination in employment, housing, medicine and education. Allowing religion to pollute the concept of a dollar being a dollar is just another affront to basic liberty. The grand majority of U.S. states can fire a trans person for simply being trans. There is routine harassment and discrimination in U.S. healthcare already, and you have a president that tried to fire all trans people in the military by Twitter.

The U.S. was never much a beacon of liberty, but it does shape developments elsewhere.

(Edit)

On the actual topic, the U.S. should outlaw pardons entirely. It's fucking stupid, to put it mildly. It serves no public good... and people like Arpaio deserve lifelong sentences without possibility of parole. Arpaio alone is proof the justice system is broken.

That being said, I feel like Trump saying this is to simply rile up people ... given there's always the possibility the Mueller investigation might not turn up anything conceete. Nothing for an actual prosecution of corruption charges. Let's be real, here. The Mueller investigation won't produce a desired effect of actually ousting a president.

Not while Republicans control the house, and so Trump can spew whatever fascist bullshit he wants, then when the investigation ends he can scream; "See!? Not guilty..." As opposed to found innocent of all charges ... And in the world of a U.S. losing its sanity and global power, and seeking to start a trade war to try to retrieve its lost strength and bargaining power... this is acceptable to Republicans and the alt-right in his crowd.

No accountability in civil servants, appealing to Protestant religiosity rather than trade and iron-clad contracts without discrimination as by-law, and the right wing no longer giving a shit about any of its euphemisms concerning its racist, homophobic, and transphobic membership... instead weaving conspiracy theories saying, like, how a trans person like myself should be able to just get fired for no reason other than being trans is morally wrong is cultural Marxism.

Those are the actions of failing nations.

The British Empire during its dying days ramped up homophobic and racist political eyphemisms, not decreased them. It doesn't take much for Protestants to just project all their problems elsewhere. The British Empire is dying? Marxists and queers in the woodwork have stolen our pride and strength!! No less the case in the U.S.

'SJW' is just another euphemism most likely used by angry dudes who never had to actually struggle for anything, but now that the economy is slowly disintegrating and the full weight of economic determinism is being felt even if there is no current recessionary crisis (trend towards normalcy and the shortening boom bust cycle of late stage capitalism), and they haven't recovered from 2000 and 2008 they feel the need to project their seeming inadequacy on other groups of people who have had it worse than them, and manage to claw some visibility for themselves.

If you want an example, get Zontar to describe how Jordan Peterson's 'Neo-Marxist postmodernists' are ruining the world.

Better yet, just ask him to outline the metaphysics of the buzzterm...

I feel like people who use buzzterms like these need a helping tablespoon of critical theory... but that's right. Philosophy, psychology, social science, those are the bad things ... almost as if someone telling them; "Well... let's unpack these feelings and sentiments of yours..." might tell them they're wrong...

In a healthy democracy, we shouldn't be having this discussion. You have an obviously corrupt president of a superpower who lost the popular vote, who is banking on simply being found nehligent rather than criminal, starting a trade war with the rest of the world, who has undercut any meagre social concessions of the previous leader of a nation who did win popular vote support twice... turning around and poking liberals and basically decent people in general, saying they're untouchable.

Let it sink in. Deal with the reality of this. Trump's supporters will support him if he screamed tomorrow he was planning an invasion of Mexico. Arguably Trump isn't a darker America. It's just the U.S. without the illusion of nobility or restraint or prettier speech writing. And it's merely run out of time with prettier euphemisms in favour of just active hate-mongering.

trunkage: People keep equating America with Freedom. While not as bad as Russia, etc, I wouldn't put America anywhere near freedom, no matter the rhetoric. Thus I don't think Trump is the enemy of a lot of Americans. Still the enemy for freedom though. He's becomin as bad as the ayatollah with his restriction of ideas and religions. I already consider America in Red Scare/ McCarthy state of terror.

Just so we can get something straight on that. We never left that. Communist has always been a dirty word in this country, ever since that, and people have always been hysterical over SOME kind of scapegoat. The target just keeps changing.

I don't just mean communism. Today decision on bakers and gay people sounds awfully like the Jim Crowe restriction of commerce against black people 100 years ago. I'd be happy to her how it's different, but discrimination is apparently back in vogue. Last week's reduction in workers rights is another one. I'm going to call it. This is going to be a bumpy month.

Also, how many years before Americans are back to jailing gay people and non Christians? We only got rid of the former 30 years ago in Australia, within my lifetime. Russia already has it and it seems to be working well for Putin

No one get on any trains sponsored by Trump.

People do not like the comparisons to Hitler, Trump needs to stop being comparable to Hitler. Much of what Trump has done and is doing is what Hitler did before he officially got his holocaust a chugging. Scape-goating, eroding the rights and freedoms of the people, especially his target victims, and pushing the government closer and closer to fascism while eradicating everyone within his party of dissenters.

This is just Trump and Giuliani (two senile fuckin' morons) throwing shit at the wall hoping that something will stick. It's full blown panic at the White House. They've been preparing themselves for a presidential subpoena and indictments of Kushner, Stone and Dotard Jr.

Gordon_4:How is it legal for him to pardon himself? Why should ANY president or other leader have the power to abosolve themselves of legal wrong-doing?

Yea, it appears it is time to amend the constitution to limit the presidential powers in regards to pardons as well as firing ability and involvement in the intelligence agencies and department of justice.

Usually I would think constitutional amendments would be very difficult to do, but in this case, I think it is something most people would get on board with.

Voters would be on board with clarifying:

*Not allowing presidents to pardon themselves, people from within their own administration, family or for certain offenses.

*Presidents can be indicted and charged with Obstruction of justice and other crimes while president, and if convicted be forced to resign,showing no one is above the law.

* If a president dies, is forced to resign or leave office, instead of having a vice president serve the entire rest of term, allow for new elections to take place within a year and VP only fills in until after election is held.

*Pardons should be able to be overturned by 2/3rds of congress regardless of how long it has been since the pardon.

*Should not be able to pardon for crimes ahead of time, only for crimes after they have been sentenced.

*Limit Presidents ability to involve themselves with the Department of Justice, FBI or CIA they should never be considered a weapon which anyone could wield to attack their political opponents.

*All members of government must recuse themselves and not be involved in or be able to influence any investigations involving themselves, their friends or family members, including the President, and members of congress.

*Protecting members of the military from the President or superior officer giving them an unlawful order. If it is an unlawful order they cannot be reprimanded, court marshalled or penalized in any way for refusing an unlawful order from the President. Rather than punish them, they should be commended.

I would think if they put those to a direct vote to the people, the people would agree. I am sure there are more, but these are a good start.

while i do hate to rain on the "screw Trump" parade. i would like to remind people that he is just a symptom of the disease and thinking that the American people has learned anything from all of this is extremely naive. any country dumb enough to vote for Trump once is dumb enough to either do so again or vote for someone similar.

lionsprey:while i do hate to rain on the "screw Trump" parade. i would like to remind people that he is just a symptom of the disease and thinking that the American people has learned anything from all of this is extremely naive. any country dumb enough to vote for Trump once is dumb enough to either do so again or vote for someone similar.

I completely agree. The problem is the people, he is just a symptom. The people could even do worse tbh. The reality of Trump being elected is that it showed the entire world how easily even the highest office in the United States can be compromised if you tell enough lies. It showed the world that the American people can easily be duped and anyone can take over the US if they run a strong disinformation campaign. They showed they can convince people of just about any nonsense they made up and people will believe it. The American people would rather believe absurd imaginary conspiracy theories they made up than the truth and will not even recognize the truth once they have been shown the proof. The people are in denial and will fight to stay in denial.

The US has serious issues that will not be resolved easily. We can expect the disinformation campaigns to get worse from here since they were so effective. Their success will only encourage more to do so.

This is just Trump and Giuliani (two senile fuckin' morons) throwing shit at the wall hoping that something will stick. It's full blown panic at the White House. They've been preparing themselves for a presidential subpoena and indictments of Kushner, Stone and Dotard Jr.

This is probably what's going on. But even if, and that's a big if, Trump could pardon himself, that's still a death sentence for his future as President, or any kind of politician for that matter. If it reaches the point where he's convicted of rigging the election or having undue contact with foreign powers, his presidency is over.

Nixon realized that the smart move was to resign, take the beating and fade into obscurity, instead of going down in a massive fireball that would have made him impossible for any position that was even remotely connected to power. Whether Trump will have the humility to accept defeat if the time comes remains to be seen.

Ah, yes. I was going to make a thread about this before you beat me to it.

My impression of it is that Trump is floating the idea of a pardon as a sort of nuclear option. Right now, Trump cannot be sure what Mueller does or does not know. That scares him; Mueller may have hard evidence of serious financial or political misconduct. So he's trying to intimidate Mueller by saying "If you try and indict me for something serious and you cannot 100% back it up, I will just pardon myself and any witnesses you've made deals with." The idea is that Mueller will stick only to what he can prove for certain, which will naturally be a smaller list than even what he can prove beyond reasonable doubt.

The whole technique is somewhat absurd because, as the Atlantic points out, Giuliani and Trump have inadvertently set a red line for Trump's own impeachment. If Trump ever did pardon himself, it would be something of a nuclear option - it would probably exculpate him from immediate criminal prosecution, but it would also cause a constitutional crisis and almost certainly lead to his impeachment. And he would still be vulnerable to other prosecutions, whether for unrelated crimes or prosecutions made within a state jurisdiction. Mutually assured political destruction.

The other side of the question is that by floating the idea of a self-pardon, even if he insists he'll never do it (he 100% would if he could get away with it) he makes the pardon power part of the discussion and therefore normalises the idea of him using the pardon power for transparently political purposes and helps reassure people who might have damning evidence on Trump - guys like Cohen and Sater and Kushner - that a pardon is waiting for them if they refuse to testify or face an indictment. So naturally, his team's memo to Mueller outlining their understanding of a president's executive power and legal liability is so expansive and totalitarian as to be ludicrous on the face of it, because that is how corporate negotiations actually work - you ask for something ludicrous that you'll never get, and that shifts the goalposts of the negotiation in your favour. He's basically haggling over what he can and cannot eventually be impeached or prosecuted for.

Gordon_4:How is it legal for him to pardon himself? Why should ANY president or other leader have the power to abosolve themselves of legal wrong-doing?

It is a fundamental principle of natural law that no man be the judge in his own case. It is, regrettably, not an explicit part of US constitutional law.

What would likely happen if Trump self-pardoned would be this. Congress would have to decide whether to impeach or not. If they decide no on the impeachment - a very likely possibility! - then the pardon would be taken to court, it would be challenged, and it eventually almost certainly would be struck down by the Supreme Court, because the Supreme Court is not populated by complete fucking idiots. In the interim, it would delay things long enough for Trump to finish his term, at which point he will say he's not running for re-election and everyone will be so relieved that they just forget about it. If they don't, he'll drag out legal proceedings until the next Republican administration, and then get a pardon from that guy anyway.

My impression of it is that Trump is floating the idea of a pardon as a sort of nuclear option. Right now, Trump cannot be sure what Mueller does or does not know. That scares him; Mueller may have hard evidence of serious financial or political misconduct. So he's trying to intimidate Mueller by saying "If you try and indict me for something serious and you cannot 100% back it up, I will just pardon myself and any witnesses you've made deals with." The idea is that Mueller will stick only to what he can prove for certain, which will naturally be a smaller list than even what he can prove beyond reasonable doubt.

The whole technique is somewhat absurd because, as the Atlantic points out, Giuliani and Trump have inadvertently set a red line for Trump's own impeachment. If Trump ever did pardon himself, it would be something of a nuclear option - it would probably exculpate him from immediate criminal prosecution, but it would also cause a constitutional crisis and almost certainly lead to his impeachment. And he would still be vulnerable to other prosecutions, whether for unrelated crimes or prosecutions made within a state jurisdiction. Mutually assured political destruction.

The other side of the question is that by floating the idea of a self-pardon, even if he insists he'll never do it (he 100% would if he could get away with it) he makes the pardon power part of the discussion and therefore normalises the idea of him using the pardon power for transparently political purposes and helps reassure people who might have damning evidence on Trump - guys like Cohen and Sater and Kushner - that a pardon is waiting for them if they refuse to testify or face an indictment. So naturally, his team's memo to Mueller outlining their understanding of a president's executive power and legal liability is so expansive and totalitarian as to be ludicrous on the face of it, because that is how corporate negotiations actually work - you ask for something ludicrous that you'll never get, and that shifts the goalposts of the negotiation in your favour. He's basically haggling over what he can and cannot eventually be impeached or prosecuted for.

Gordon_4:How is it legal for him to pardon himself? Why should ANY president or other leader have the power to abosolve themselves of legal wrong-doing?

It is a fundamental principle of natural law that no man be the judge in his own case. It is, regrettably, not an explicit part of US constitutional law.

What would likely happen if Trump self-pardoned would be this. Congress would have to decide whether to impeach or not. If they decide no on the impeachment - a very likely possibility! - then the pardon would be taken to court, it would be challenged, and it eventually almost certainly would be struck down by the Supreme Court, because the Supreme Court is not populated by complete fucking idiots. In the interim, it would delay things long enough for Trump to finish his term, at which point he will say he's not running for re-election and everyone will be so relieved that they just forget about it. If they don't, he'll drag out legal proceedings until the next Republican administration, and then get a pardon from that guy anyway.

The issue is the Office of the President was designed to apply to the person who is most trusted with the lives of everyone not taking into account that the office of the President could be compromised. The ability to pardon was not restricted due to taking into account a scenario where the Military was compromised and turned against the people and government and the President and those who took orders from the President may need to use any and all options, legal or otherwise in order to regain or retain control of the government to protect the people from the Military.

It was never meant to be used to pardon people for doing bad things against the people for self interest, however, they also expected the people to be trusted to elect only a person who could be most trusted with the lives of everyone, not some clown willing to sell the people and country out for personal interests.

I tried to warn people of this issue during the election, but they somehow thought that there were safeguards to protect from this from happening, but in reality there really is not. This and far more damage can actually be done is the issue as long as they have a congress corrupt enough to allow it to happen.

This is where you're wrong. The only thing that separates Trump from life in prison is the presidency. He would only resign or refuse to run for reelection if he was 100% convinced that he won't face any legal consequences once he's out of office. But for now he absolutely can't afford to resign or not run for reelection. That's why in his insane mind he thinks about lifetime presidency.

trunkage: Today decision on bakers and gay people sounds awfully like the Jim Crowe restriction of commerce against black people 100 years ago. I'd be happy to her how it's different, but discrimination is apparently back in vogue. Last week's reduction in workers rights is another one. I'm going to call it. This is going to be a bumpy month.

It remained to be seen exactly how it will play out but the decision on bakery is actually very limited, it only pertain to creative exercise. Meaning if the bakery makes generic cake, they don't have the right to refuse to sell it. But they do have the right to refuse to make a specialized cake since it's considered an artistic expression and protected by 1st amendment. This could eventually cause some problem, is a chef in a restaurant making a product or making an artistic expression when cooking something for customer? But it's very far from outright banning people from commerce.

I think your talking about the California from a few years ago. There was a new one, from Colorado, that was just looked at by the supreme court. They said the civil liberties group unfairly treated the owner - discriminating against his religion. He's allowed to not sell any cake, as far as I'm aware.

Technically, it's a grey area. The president assuredly has the power of pardon, and nothing in the letter of the law says he cannot pardon himself.

In reality, however, he would be colossally contravening major principles of law: for instance that no-one should judge themselves. Thus I think SCOTUS would unanimously kill a presidential self-pardon in the blink of an eye. It would however be a constitutional crisis if the president then opposed SCOTUS doing so.

More realistically, I think were a president to pardon him- or herself, Congress would pretty much be forced to impeach immediately. The USA would have to fall a substantial way from where it is now before party loyalty would overcome such a basic principle of rule of law.

trunkage: Today decision on bakers and gay people sounds awfully like the Jim Crowe restriction of commerce against black people 100 years ago. I'd be happy to her how it's different, but discrimination is apparently back in vogue. Last week's reduction in workers rights is another one. I'm going to call it. This is going to be a bumpy month.

It remained to be seen exactly how it will play out but the decision on bakery is actually very limited, it only pertain to creative exercise. Meaning if the bakery makes generic cake, they don't have the right to refuse to sell it. But they do have the right to refuse to make a specialized cake since it's considered an artistic expression and protected by 1st amendment. This could eventually cause some problem, is a chef in a restaurant making a product or making an artistic expression when cooking something for customer? But it's very far from outright banning people from commerce.

I think your talking about the California from a few years ago. There was a new one, from Colorado, that was just looked at by the supreme court. They said the civil liberties group unfairly treated the owner - discriminating against his religion. He's allowed to not sell any cake, as far as I'm aware.

It's actually even more limiting then what I said, it only looked at the way the case was handled in Colorado in the first place and didn't actually look into when and where people can claim religious discrimination, just that this specific case did.

lionsprey:while i do hate to rain on the "screw Trump" parade. i would like to remind people that he is just a symptom of the disease and thinking that the American people has learned anything from all of this is extremely naive. any country dumb enough to vote for Trump once is dumb enough to either do so again or vote for someone similar.

Second that. Well, he is further exacerbating the problem by being in power, but it wouldn't cease to exist if some less evil person was in charge.

BreakfastMan:This is amazing. I hope he does it too, because the result would be HILARIOUS. Like, I want him to fire Sessions and Mueller, then be indited anyway, then just fucking pardon himself. XD

The result would make it impossible for him to run for reelection and he would end up in prison since a lot of the crimes that he's guilty of could also be prosecuted on a state level. And in order to accept a pardon you have to admit guilt. So yeah, let's hope he tries to do it, lol.

Impressive. That's the worst attempt at not looking guilty I have ever seen. He might as well be sweating profusely, shifting eyes and tugging anxiously at his collar while pointing accusingly toward the dog. It's something out of a bearfaced parody. But then again, everything he does is.